Sunday, November 04, 2012

Robert D. Skeels for LAUSD Board of Education

Robert D. Skeels has been writing at SM since June 11, 2011, and his astute, acerbic, and sometime acidic commentaries have effectively lifted many rocks where profiteer snakes hide, melted away many corporate leeches from their public hosts, and shamed many professional self-servers for their unwavering commitments to themselves. In doing so, he has shone his own true colors as a relentless advocate for public schools, democracy, and social justice.

And so I was excited to hear that Robert is now campaigning for a seat on the LAUSD Board of Education, which will hold its primary election a little over a hundred days from now.

I hope everyone in L.A. (and elsewhere) who believes that public schools are for the public rather than corporations will support Robert's candidacy, for I cannot think of anyone with more commitment, drive, and passion for humane public schools for all children and for the future of our democracy.

And besides, Schools Matter needs a blogger who is a school board member.

2 comments:

I was really touched and humbled by Professor Horn's endorsement and those of all the other public education luminaries who are pretty much my rock stars. Please see the endorsement section on my campaign site for more kind words of support from other public education allies.

While my campaign is viable, I am running against an incumbent who embodies the policies of the one percent, and hence has astonishing financial backing. To put that in perspective: Mónica García has already raised ten times more than ALL the candidates from EVERY LAUSD district combined. Philip Anschutz and Eli Broad's Coalition for School Reform (CSR) will surely chip in millions more for an independent expenditure.

The good news is that in the last election cycle, CSR pumped 3.2 million into Luiz Sanchez's campaign, who, by the way, was García's Chief of Staff. Sanchez spent nearly ten times more per vote than Kayser, but a community led campaign won the day. Many of us spent countless volunteer hours phone banking and precinct walking (I did much of the latter). I'm counting on that same kind of community support, but that doesn't mean it can be done without money.

Teacher-activist Cheryl Ortega, writing in response to Schools Matter's P.L. Thomas' endorsement of my campaign: "This, plus the endorsement of Susan Ohanian, makes it clear that the national education community realizes the importance of this race and the impact it will obviously have on students and teachers in Los Angeles and beyond."

She's right. I hope all of Schools Matter readers take action on that observation. This blog has 787 some odd readers listed "Followers." I'm sure actual readership is many times that number. If each reader chipped in $10-20 to my campaign, it would go a long way towards putting a social context reformer on the LAUSD Board. I don't need to tell people what it would mean to have me on the board of second biggest school district in the country. The entire narrative changes, and I will use that seat to oppose neoliberalism and shout the social justice message far and wide.